Virginia will develop plans to prevent and respond to artificial intelligence-related cyberattacks and deploy an independent team to review security weaknesses across connected state data systems, The Center Square reported.
First-year Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger ordered the work through Executive Directive 6, signed Friday. The directive specifies no spending amount or completion deadline. The action follows an Oct. 13 legislative review that found gaps in Virginia’s oversight of government AI use.
The secretary of public safety and homeland security must establish a Cyber Consortium to adopt a statewide cyberattack prevention and response plan and an infrastructure-hardening plan. Separately, the state’s AI Task Force must deploy an independent privacy and security review team. Spanberger said Anthropic AI agents had submitted fake Freedom of Information Act requests through a Virginia Department of Education website; officials understood no sensitive information had been accessed.
